"I wish I had taken the time to write a review previously. We have come here quite a few times and used to enjoy it. Today, after a longer break, it was an absolute disappointment. 1. Service: it took a long time to get seen and seated but the manager was the best of staff we saw. We have a child with a disability, so when we go out, we like to sit outside, to have space and minimize risk of disrupting fellow diners. We chose to sit outside and they failed to offer us one of the working heaters until we carted one across the veranda ourselves because kid 2 started to get blue lips. Service was VERY slow. It took a long time to see actual food. When I asked if we could have a handful of more chips to finish our guacamole, it was denied and then not mentioned again. I chose a salad with SHREDDED chicken and when, after a long time my food arrived, I was handed a salad with big chunks of dry chicken. When I asked our waiter whether it was supposed to shredded (IT SAYS SHREDDED ON THE MENU), he just yelled NO!! And then didn't follow it up with any other comment. It was so random and unfriendly, I'm still trying to shake the feeling that they didn't like us for whatever reason. 2. Food: HORRIBLE. Thin tortilla chips as a starter you should look through. The chicken we were served was dry and so rubbery and chewy that I didn't even want to take it home. A side of strawberries for the kids was absolutely mushed. Penne in marinara was a tiny cup of microwaved pasta and they charged us $2 extra for a tiny cup of strawberry mush. When I asked if kid 1 could have strawberries, too, out came another cup of mush. Oh yeah, and my husband's pasta plate had a stain on it. 3. Cheque: there were some random surcharges. I believe we were charged 1$ for the kids tap water and then we had 2 bananas on there for a dollar each. The waiter dropped the card reader at our table and when I tried to ask him about these surcharges, he disappeared. After a few minutes, I took it inside but the lady at the counter could work on it, so our waiter had to be called back. I grabbed a menu to show him that my chicken should indeed have been shredded and he just huffed and puffed an apology out and hovered long enough over my shoulder to check what I was tipping. I'm usually on the side of staff and I like to tip well and eat rubbish food if staff is nice but this was the first time ever that I didn't want to tip. (Not) surprisingly, when I put no tip, the bill jumped up an additional $3. Marmalade Cafe today was an absolute disappointment. It has gone way downhill and service and food were awful. On a side note, the waiter gave our disabled kid a side eye, so maybe he had a problem that we were out and about having a nice time. Not worth the money and shoddy treatment. There are plenty of wonderful restaurants around who love our business."
